Posts tagged alwyn cosgrove

One of the gifts I got my wife for her 40th birthday was a ticket to the Moon Over Three Caves Dance. We’ve been trying to go for years and I am so glad we went because it was awesome!

They had one of our favorite bands, Juice, playing. They actually played at our wedding, so my wife was really excited to see them.

On special occasions, I will take my unique talents to the dance floor. I give the gift of dance to all who are around me because I am a giver. I am familiar with most of the popular line dances, but they all tend to kind of run together for me until I find my way.

Juice played The Wobble at one point and I found myself in a familiar position of knowing just enough to be dangerous. I knew all of The Wobble steps, but I may or may have not had the correct order.

The dance floor was in a state of confusion. There were several people who were thrown off by the slightly different rendition of The Wobble. Some were thrown off by the fact they had no idea what was happening. And others might have been thrown off by the glare on my head.

Somebody needed to do something! They needed guidance. They needed a hero.

They needed a ginger.

So I went all in. I did things big, I did things on the 4 count. I did all the steps you’re supposed to do. I have no idea if it was in the right order, but I did it with gusto.

A funny thing happened. People started following my lead and doing the same flawed moves. It was like that dance scene in Can’t Buy Me Love if you’ve ever seen that.

There are a few lessons to take away from this.

1. You have control over two things in life: attitude and effort.

This is something we preach to our 11 and 12-year old football players all the time. You don’t have control over how fast or big you are, but you do have control over how hard you work and your positivity.

The same thing applies to your exercise program. You can’t control genetics, your schedule, and hundreds of other things. You do have control of how much effort you put into it and whether or not you are going to stick with it. Go hard.

2. Psychology trumps physiology.

One of the top guys in the fitness world, Alwyn Cosgrove says this. That just means there is a lot you can overcome going all in with the help of others. You don’t have to have the perfect exercise program to get results. Don’t overthink what exercises to do, how many times, how many days, etc… A group atmosphere has been proven to help you increase your intensity, overcome fatigue, and get you better results.

3. Be careful who you follow, they probably have no idea what they are doing.

Last week your challenge was to time yourself and see how fast you could dothis workout. It's a pretty fun, quick workout you can periodically test yourself with. How did you do?
The best I could do was 7:17 with 35 pound weights. My goal is to get under 7 minutes next time.

Your challenge for this week is use snowball goal setting. By this time many people have already given up on their New Year's Resolutions. This is your opportunity to start over fresh.

What's a snowball goal anyway? I've learned about this theory of goal setting from a few different sources. Most recently from a fitness professional named Alwyn Cosgrove. Not only is he one of the smartest guys in the fitness industry, he is Scottish so it is like James Bond giving you great information.

Here is snowball goal setting in a nut shell.

1) List five or six behaviors you need to improve or change to reach your goals. What do you need to be doing that you're not doing? What bad habits do you need to kick? What good habits do you need to instill?

2) List these things from easiest to hardest.

3) "Maintain" all your other goals and focus your attention on the first thing on your list (the easiest one.) Spend two weeks just focusing on achieving that goal so that it becomes a habit.

4) Once that change has been made and ingrained, move up to the next item on your list and focus your efforts there.

5) One by one, knock out these changes and/or goals.

For example: Maybe you sleep late. First goal might be to get up 15 minutes earlier every day.

Second goal might be to go to the gym as soon as you wake up - and go four times a week instead of three.

Third goal- make sure you always eat breakfast.

Fourth goal- reduce portion sizes at 3 out of 5 meals/snacks.

So in 10 weeks or so - you're getting up earlier - never missing a workout, got in an extra ten workouts, and eaten breakfast everyday while consuming less calories overall. These goals would "snowball" into a bigger overall effect with long-term success whereas trying to do all things at once would likely result in short term failure.

The main challenge overall is to keep going! Take some of the things we have done (food journals, not sitting too much, drinking plenty of water, etc...) and make them a part of your life.